FDNY contains car fire in Great Kills section of Staten Island

Photo courtesy of G. AdamsA downed high-tension wire at the corner of Hylan Boulevard. and Waterside Parkway in Great Kills made for some dicey moments yesterday.

By RYAN LAVIS

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Downed power lines sparked a dramatic car fire along Hylan Boulevard in Great Kills yesterday that caused minor power outages and almost spread to a nearby home.

FDNY Staten Island Engine 162/Ladder 82 responded to the car fire — which took place on a stretch of Hylan lined with houses, near the intersection of Waterside Parkway — after the call came in at 12:55 p.m.

Firefighters had to wait for Con Edison to shut off the power before they could douse the car in water. During that time, first responders worked on keeping the flames away from a house adjacent to the flaming car.

“I just heard a huge explosion,” said Hayley Scherer, 12, who watched from her neighbor’s window as her dad’s 1989 Lincoln became engulfed in flames. “I saw big white sparks and my dad’s car on fire. After that we just ran to the backyard, hopped the fence and called 911.”

Hayley’s parents, Melissa and Eric, were out at the time picking up supplies from an auto store to fix up a different car, which was parked in their backyard. “I had a lot of stuff in that car and now everything’s gone,” Scherer said.

Firefighters kept the flames from setting the house on fire. But they couldn’t control it enough to protect Jose Lopez’s work van, which was parked in his backyard.

The fire melted the white plastic off his rented house’s metal fence, and spread to the van, badly burning its exterior.

Fortunately, firefighters extinguished the flames before things got worse. No injuries were reported.

“I called my boss and told him what happened,” Lopez said. “We’re just hoping Con Ed pays for the damage.”

A Con Ed spokeswoman said the cause of the downed wires is “under review.”

Witnesses claim the explosion they heard was from a blown transformer. Representatives from Con Ed also could not confirm if any reparations would be paid for the damages.

At about the same time of the fire, roughly 3,000 of the utility’s customers in neighborhoods including New Dorp, Oakwood, Richmond and Todt Hill, lost power due to a downed wire, said Con Ed spokeswoman Elizabeth Matthews , though it wasn’t clear last night if the those outages were caused by the same incident that sparked the blaze.

Con Ed restored power to those affected at about 4:30 p.m., Ms. Matthews said.